


60 Days

by HighVelocity



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:59:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HighVelocity/pseuds/HighVelocity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because there's no way, no reason for myths and legends to actually hold true in an age of science and logic - no reason for ancient monsters to exist. No place for vampires, no room for werewolves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	60 Days

_Day: 18_

Every drop of rain hits him like a bullet punching through flesh. Every touch of the misting spray whipped up by the wind is shrapnel, slicing into his skin. The droplets running down his face are cooling blood, washing down the curve and dip of cheekbones and jawlines to gather in the hollow at the base of his throat.

Nate tracks every drop that spatters on him, following their trajectories with his mind's eye, extrapolating. They plow through his biceps, abdomen, sternum, cut through hips and thighs and shins, crack open ankles, clavicles, shoulders. On his face, they shatter the fine bones of his skull.

Out in the rain, this is where Mike finds Nate, splayed out to the elements in a ragged MOPP suit that's lost any semblance of being remotely protective, eyes shut and hands curled loosely by his side.

"Nate," he says quietly, too far gone for rank. It's only used now like a verbal slap, a soft reminder of days gone by. Used only if the hint of discipline was needed to put someone back in line.

He doesn't stir, but a hitch in the movement of his chest gives him away.

"Nate," he repeats, a little louder this time. "Situation below decks. You're needed ASAP, Lieutenant."

It's only then that he moves, green eyes blinking in the rain. Nate sucks in air, lets it go with a huff. He pushes himself upright, a dead body come to life again.

"Two minutes. I'll be there."

Mike nods, and heads off. Nate watches him go, and thinks he sees the ghosts of Mike's family around him for a brief, shimmering second.

*

Brad smells like coffee. No, check that. His breath smells like coffee. The rest of him smells like three weeks of unwashed man, which he is. Hasser nurses a split lip in one corner of the cave they're holed up in for the night. Person mopes in the other corner, eyes burning dark. He moves jerkily, the sulk easy to read in the way he keeps glancing over at Hasser, then at Brad, the communication silent but packed with meaning.

Nate should be unamused, but right now, he's having trouble mustering up the necessary outrage to whip them all back into shape. He wants the rain. Wants it to scour his bones clean. But it only lasts for fractions of seconds before the LT surfaces to stitch them all with a sharp look. He's got his men to look after.

"Somebody want to explain to me what the fuck was going on in here?"

"Look, LT, it's just, I'm - "

"Ray."

Brad is leaner, rangier, sharper, and impossibly – taller. Or perhaps that's simply an illusion created by the exhausted hunch of everyone else while he, ever the good Recon Marine that he is, clings to fading discipline and stands at attention. His eyes burn arctic blue in a skull with bones too prominent.

Nate suddenly yearns.

But the LT wants an explanation. He tips his head back, just a fraction, demanding an answer.

Brad doesn't cave. Instead, after so effectively shutting Person up, he jerks his own head to one side, a more private corner. Nate goes willingly, after one last glance at Mike in a silent request to help keep a lid on things, help find out what they need to keep everyone together. They're down to a scant handful of men, holed up in a mud shack, with minimal gear, minimal supplies, the Humvees out of fuel and more hindrance than help.

Mike, bless his heart, what would he do without Mike?

What  _could_  he do without Mike?

These are thoughts he entertains briefly, before focusing on what Brad has to say. It's just the men being men. They're tired. Fatigued. Hungry. More so than when they were the tip of the spear of a fucked up invasion effort, rolling through the desert in tan-plated Humvees, before the desert rose up in the night and claimed a fresh share of blood. They're worried sick. For their brothers, for their sisters. For family and friends and Suzie Rottencrotch back home, if they're alive, if they're dead, if they're weeping over a cold sheet of paper, if, if, if.

Nate lets him talk himself dry, listening to his words but hearing the bone-deep exhaustion and worry, hearing the  _fear_ underneath it. Dips his chin, because they can't  _do_  anything, and the frustration kills him.

His smile feels like glass, something to match the look in Brad's eyes when he looks up.

And here, out of sight, they break protocol, and he wraps his arms around Brad, who's frustrated and angry and desperate. Who's no longer the Iceman but just a warm, if gaunt human, in his arms. Brad's head is tucked into his neck, breath hitching in hot puffs against the line of Nate's throat.

"We'll get out," he whispers, running his hands over the expanse of Brad's back. Even through the gear, he can feel the ridges and bumps of bone. It's not right.

Nate wonders when his hands started telling him that the correct thing to feel underneath the warmth of Brad's skin and the faintly raised edges of his tattoo was solid muscle.

"I'm assured of this."

*

 _Day: 21_

"By the way, LT, that whole thing? That was Person being his usual backwards hick self and making some kinda pass at Hasser."

"You can't tell me him punching out Hasser's lights was just some fucked up version of inbred hick town foreplay."

"That's  _exactly_  what I'm telling you, LT. "

" _Poke_ ."

Brad's grinning, anyway. Nate considers it a victory.

*

 _Day: 30_

There are a grand total of five words that break their hearts.

 _'Man down.'_

' _Brad got bit_.'

*

 _Day: 32_

"I can do this, Nate. I can  _do_  this."

But they've seen what happens. Half the forms that stalk the night now  _are_  their own men. Nate wonders if there's comfort to be had in the fact that Reyes and Patrick, brothers in arms, and now just  _brothers_ , have been observed carving out territory around the village the men have been using as a base. He'd like to believe they're afforded some kind of protection from the others, from that.

As Brad stares up at him from where he sprawls on the makeshift cot, Nate goes to a knee, cups the back of his neck to press his forehead against Brad's. He believes in Brad.

Two heartbeats later, he's rewarded with the answering clutch of Brad's hand at the side of his neck.

"When I said I could kiss you, Nate, I meant it," he whispered. There's a bare hint of a chuckle underneath that. "Figures that the one time I could, I  _can't_ ."

The crunch in his chest is so painful he can barely breathe for a moment.

*

 _Day: 33_

"If anyone can get through this, it's Colbert," Fick reasons out to the few of them that remain. He counts off heads in his mind; Doc, Baptista, Lilley, Stiney, Christeson and Stafford. Person, Hasser, Trombley, Reporter. They had Aubin and Patterson, and the ragtag remains of Alpha for a day before nightfall claimed the battalion surgeon, and they pushed on.

"There's not enough space in the tiny shacks to hold them all, Nate, and we know this," Patterson told him quietly. "But we did get some Intel that suggested the presence of an operating FOB. Royal Marines." He huffs a laugh, the apparent insult meant to cheer. "Mixing in with a whole bunch of limey gits. This is going to be interesting."

Nate's mouth quirks up in a smile at that. They both know that when push came to shove, regardless of origin, or training, they'd work together and work together well, no questions asked.

"Look, we'll mark the trail and you can pick it up in a couple of days, maybe. We'll try to establish radio contact, every six hours. Stay frosty, Nate."

Incredibly, Team One, Vehicle One is still intact. Even Reporter, who found a new set of balls, and now wields a nine mil with just as much accuracy as a trained Marine and runs straight for cover instead of in serpentine. And there's Trombley, in his element, shooting dogs. After they spotted Reyes and Patrick out there, though, two long forms perched shoulder to shoulder on an outcropping with too-keen intelligence in wolfish eyes, he's checked himself, made it a point to identify each wolf in case of accident. There's a list carved into the wall of the hut.

*

In private, away from the eyes and away from the ears, Brad goes to Nate, buries his nose in the other's neck. Breathes in deep, like he could hold the scent of the man himself, in his lungs, in his blood, part of himself.

"I don't know what you're getting besides dirt and two weeks' worth of ball sweat," Nate jokes.

He's pinned by sharp, sharp blue eyes that cut into him with all the force of a fifty-cal. It's like being hit without actually being hit. Nate feels the punch and jerk of rounds going through him again, like rain, and lays a hand on Brad's shoulder to stave off the disorienting feeling of being in two places at once. He feels the curve of muscle, the heat of a wound slowly being infected. It seeps through cloth; he fancies it's his hand that's drawing the heat up, as though he's some mythical healer able to pull this poison out of Brad.

But he's not.

He's just a man.

 _not just a man_

 __He's a Marine.

"Nate."

Green eyes jerk up to meet Brad's.

Brad's eyes flick down to Nate's sidearm, then he gestures to himself. Two in the heart. One in the head. Nate sucks in air through his nose, feeling his heart stutter while the rest of him returns the gaze steadily.

"Just in case."

*

When he goes back to Mike, the man just takes one look at him, and opens his arms to Nate. Suddenly, he's not the LT, he's not a Marine, he's a young man scared and desperate and alone, faced with the loss of one of the best men he's ever known. Nate clings with a ferocity that scares him, fingers twisted into Mike's ragged shirt, grinding his head against the solid wing of a collarbone.

"Shit," he starts, then stops. He can't find the words.

" _Shit_ ."

And Mike, Mike simply holds him with all the fatherly care and affection inherent in the man, lets him cling. He doesn't even flinch when Nate buries his face in his neck, chest heaving in dry, soundless sobs, but rubs soothing circles into Nate's back.

*

 _Day: 35_

"This is bullshit," Doc announces under his breath, as they wind down watch duty. Nate hears something broken underneath it. "We're Recon Marines. Swift, silent, deadly. But look at us. Fuckin' stuck out in the middle of buttfuck nowhere facing down some fucking... I can't even – there's just no words for this," he finishes. His gaze swings to Nate, hollow, smudged around the edges with fatigue. Nate leans into his shoulder, the gesture supportive, while Doc vents in fits and spurts, until they get to the heart of the matter – that he is lost, that even with all his extensive training and medical knowledge, he has got nothing that will help him treat Brad. Hell, he doesn't even know if Brad's condition is something that can even be treated.

Nate's mouth compresses into a firm line. "We'll figure it out," he says, clapping a hand on Doc's knee.

He believes it because he  _has_  to. The memory of Brad's eyes, Brad's words, burn in the back of his head.

*

Mike doesn't say a word when he flops beside the older man, raking fingers through hair long since grown out of regulation length. He makes an attempt to trim it back every so often, not wanting to have to deal with the impracticability of having hair in his eyes when he needs to sight something, but since they've left the trimmer behind, it's become a losing battle.

Nate knows he looks even more like a fresh-faced college kid, even with hollows in his cheeks and smudges under his eyes, and enough dirt on him to suffocate an elephant. He's unsurprised at how good Brad manages to look with his hair grown out, though.

A kick at his ankle and a wan smile from Mike. 

"Person worked his magic on the comms again," he drawls. Nate studies the wrinkles that form around his eyes, bracket his mouth. They don't make him look old - instead there's a sturdy familiarity there, that he finds soothing. 

"Managed to raise Alpha on the net - looks like they got to that base, all right. I'm thinkin' we move out tomorrow, while Brad's still capable of walking under his own power."

"Shit, that's good news, Mike. That's good." 

For the first time in a long time, Nate's smile is genuine, wide and brilliant. 

It does an old man's heart good.

*

 _Day: 36_

They move out. Hasser's arm is slung around Person's neck; Poke has half of Brad's gear. The shoulder wound looks like shit. Doc Bryan is just behind him, to his left, ready to carry him if need be.

Nate heads the column, with Mike bringing up the rear, and all their men packed in between. The confirmation of an operating FOB from Alpha when Person worked magic fingers to patch them through hadn't just boosted morale, it  _goosed_  morale and kicked it into high gear. There's a ragtag assortment of men there. Not just Royals, but also Rangers, SAS, Australian troops, even ANA. 

"That would suck, homes. Suddenly it's no longer about NAMBLA or the NRA or even whackjob conspiracy theories, but fuckin', ancient desert curses or zombie virus outbreaks gone wrong, or mutating  _shit_ ."

"Ray. Shut up."

Brad's voice hasn't lost its power, even as the infection starts taking its toll. Doc's face tells Nate that he fears sepsis would kill Brad long before any mystical, improbable transformation can take hold. He also knows that they have no idea what's going to happen, when, and what kinds of risks would be involved. 

Mike's gentle touch on his elbow grounds him. Nate's fingers freeze, and drop away from his sidearm.

 _Shit_ .

He mouths a ‘thank you' to Mike. He's been doing that far too often lately.

*

 _Day: 37_

One night out in the desert is bad enough, but the prospect of a second makes Nate worry, even with a meet-and-greet team being sent out to meet them halfway. The RV isn't all that far, but they've got injured - Hasser's joined the casualty list, having twisted his ankle. Brad refuses to be babied, but exerting himself could be fatal. Doc snaps at him at some point when he bitches -  _this isn't a broken ankle on Mount Shasta, Brad, this is an infected wound that's slowly killing you so for the love of god work with us here, unless you want me to knock you out and stretcher your bony ass all the way to the RV_  - oddly enough, that seems to give Brad some peace. He and Ray exchange a long look, before Ray laughs, and Brad cracks a smile. He's quieter after that.

At the edge of their perimeter are Reyes and Patrick. Trombley's the first to spot them, as usual. He brings up the topic of renaming them, again, but Nate vetoes it. 

"Don't take away the last of what they are," he explains. And dearly hopes he's right, and not just projecting. Nate glances over at the two of them, biting his lip, wondering at how easily they've accepted that fact - that those aren't regular wolves. Size, colour, action, their very presence, the little things they do. Somewhere, buried deep, is a dim memory of a bloody night, when a wrong turn brought them into unholy ground, and half the platoon paid the price for that with their lives.

Another third paid for it with blood and the loss of everything they were.

Mike cuts in from Nate's three, with his lazy, mild drawl. "Besides, why do you think we managed to get through last night untouched? It was just as much their presence as anything we did. We are still in their territory." 

Trombley mulls that over, then nods. "Yes, sir."

A little later, he catches Trombley throwing the last of his pound cake at Reyes and Patrick. Emboldened, the pair trot up to Trombley, even more massive up close; over a metre at the shoulder, with bright gold eyes and sandy coats. One of them is darker.

Their heads turn to Brad. One gives a soft whine, tail wagging slowly. He stares back, exhaling slowly.

"I'm okay. I'm okay," he murmurs. 

Before daybreak, they vanish over a dune. A long, low howl echoes through the morning air.

*

 _Day: 40_

Two miles out from the RV, Brad collapses. 

*

 _Day: 60_

Nate often wonders if he's lost his mind. They've been through enough that he definitely doubts that he's still in the same plane of reality that he had been living in before this clusterfuck. Because there's no way, no reason for myths and legends to actually hold true in an age of science and logic - no reason for ancient monsters to exist. No place for vampires, no room for werewolves. Slowly, one by one, mysterious beasts were explained away as the results of ignorance, liberal interpretations, cases of mistaken identity. Fiction and metaphorical stories meant as warnings, or meant as allegories, taken for truth.

But the warm presence by his legs begs to differ, with a massive, long gray muzzle resting in his lap, ice blue eyes looking up at him. 

No smoke without a fire.

"You could pass for a husky," Nate says conversationally, raising a hand to rub between pointed ears. The colouring is definitely there, though without the striking husky mask. 

He gets a disgusted snort in response.  _Home_ , comes the nip and tug of wolfish teeth on his hand, his wrist, gentle enough to leave skin intact even with the pressure applied. 

In two days, they will be on a plane bound for US soil. Nate will be leaving the Corps. He's not completely sure, not completely prepared for all the finer points of having a wolf in his house, but he'll make do. 

He's not leaving Brad.


End file.
